MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) combine mechanical structures and microelectronic circuits to create integrated devices. MEMS have many useful applications such as microsensors and microactuators. Examples of microsensors include inertial instruments such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, detectors for gasses such as carbon-monoxide, and pressure sensors. Examples of microactuators include optical mirrors used for video displays, switching arrays, and disk-drive head actuators used for increasing track density.
Many MEMS-based devices utilize electrical circuits combined with air-gap capacitors to sense motion, or to apply electrostatic forces to a movable structure. Air-gap capacitors are often formed between sets of capacitor plates anchored to a substrate interleaved with plates attached to a movable structure. The performance of many capacitive-based MEMS improves as: 1) the overlap area of capacitor plates increases, 2) the distance between the stationary and movable capacitor plates decreases, 3) the compliance of the structure varies dramatically in different directions, and 4) the mass of the structure increases. Each of these performance issues is enhanced using high-aspect-ratio semiconductor technologies, wherein thickness or depth of fabricated structures is much larger than small lateral dimensions such as width of flexible beams and gaps between capacitor plates.
Electrical interfaces for capacitive-based MEMS require electrically isolated nodes spanned by one or more variable capacitors such as an air-gap capacitor. Thus, capacitive interfaces using capacitors formed between structural elements require electrical isolation between these structural elements.
The performance of devices such as accelerometers and gyroscopes may benefit from combining high-aspect-ratio structures with circuits integrated in the same substrate. Hence, a high-aspect-ratio structure etched into a single-crystal silicon substrate that also contains integrated circuits is of particular interest. Of even greater interest is a process sequence that yields structures and circuits in the same substrate but does not significantly alter complex and expensive circuit fabrication processes. Such a process sequence enables cost-effective manufacture of devices comprising integrated circuits and structures on a single substrate.
For improved performance, an integrated MEMS process should address three issues. First, the structural elements should be formed by a high-aspect-ratio process. Second, fabrication of mechanical structures should have a minimal impact on fabrication of associated circuitry on the same substrate. Third, structural elements should be electrically isolated from one another, the substrate, and circuit elements except where interconnection is desired.